


the perfect halo of gold hair and lightning

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:42:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: A first date, a storm, and the Eiffel Tower. | Second-place for Challenge 8 at then_theres_us on LJ many moons ago.





	the perfect halo of gold hair and lightning

Rose remembers her first date. It was with Tommy Madigan, who had just turned seventeen. She was fourteen, and she knew her mum would have been _very_ disapproving if she’d known about it. But that was when Rose was much better at hiding things from her mum, and Jackie didn’t find out about the date until three weeks had passed and Cherine had mentioned it when they were having Sunday tea together with the Collins. 

Tommy had taken her to the movies, to see a new action flick where something exploded every three minutes, and afterwards they’d walked along the Thames holding hands. She’d kissed him before running home—this was before she’d learned the true importance of running properly—but they’d hardly snogged. 

A nice first date, to be sure. But hardly as nice as this.

This being Paris on a stormy night in 1902. The Doctor hadn’t explained why he’d chosen this precise night—June 3rd—but clearly something spectacular was going to happen. She could tell by the way he rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet, his Converse squeaking ever so slightly, his coat whipping behind him in the wind.

And yes, this wasn’t _technically_ their first date (there were no chips to be seen, for one), but Rose considered it their first date _in the past_. And her first date with this new new Doctor, the one with fantastic hair and that adorable tendency to tug on his ear when he was thinking. She wished she could remember more about that kiss Cassandra had stolen from him, but the taste of him had never truly been on _her_ lips. 

Still, she suspected she’d have plenty of time tonight to steal her own first kiss from him.

“It better not start raining,” she said loudly over the wind, looping her arm through his and staring up at the Tower that loomed above them. 

“Not quite yet,” he replied. She felt the echo of the words through his arm more than heard them, for just then there came a terrific thunderclap. 

She supposed this was a strange sort of first date. This wasn’t a nice restaurant with candles and expensive dishes with impossible-to-pronounce names. This wasn’t an idyllic picnic or a fancy party with champagne flues or a low-key night on the couch with a stack of Cary Grant films. 

This was standing under the Eiffel Tower during a thunderstorm. 

But this was also 1902, a year that had been dead and gone and mostly forgotten for over three generations. The very air smelled and felt different, there were carts and buggies and people on horses, and somehow her body knew that it shouldn’t be—couldn’t be!—standing on this particular patch of ground. Every cell in her body hummed with the sense of the time and place, and it felt glorious.

Almost as glorious as the feel of his hand sliding into hers, and the warmth of his sloppy smile as he glanced down at her and winked. She felt her toes curl inside her sneakers.

It did feel a bit strange, standing here like this with such an impossible man, but Rose couldn’t deny that it was also quite near perfect. The storm and deepening night had driven the other tourists and vendors away. There was no one else but the Doctor, nothing else but the bubble they stood in and the Tower itself—which felt like something of a living, breathing beast in its own right, standing over them with bulldog-like bow legs. 

“Just about…” the Doctor looked down at his watch. “Time.”

The air had gone very still and heavy, and the silence was unnerving. Rose tightened her grip on his hand. 

“Don’t let go,” he whispered.

And then the lightning struck.

The incandescent forked tongue paused, for the briefest of moments, at the top of the Tower before leaping downwards, crackling along the metallic frame around them as it plunged toward the earth. Every hair on their bodies stood at attention as the force of the electricity buzzed along their skin and in their bones.

As the dazzling glow died away, as she blinked away the sparks from her eyelashes, Rose drew in a single shaky breath that swelled her chest as it filled her lungs. 

“Good God,” was all she could say in the aftermath.

“The power of nature is a humbling thing,” the Doctor said, pulling an umbrella out from beneath his coat. With one hand and a flick of his wrist he had it opened and over their heads just as the clouds finally let the rain loose. 

“How are we not dead?” Her voice was shaking, but she could feel a giddy laugh building behind the shock and fear. 

“Rubber soles,” he said nonchalantly, lifting a foot and waggling his Converse. “…And because I absorbed most of the energy that came at us as the electricity passed down the Tower. It’s a very useful thing, Rose, to have a body that can absorb surrounding energy. You humans should look into evolving along those lines.”

“I just stood beneath the Eiffel Tower…”

“Yep.”

“…As it was struck by lightning…”

“Yep.”

“… _in 1902_ , and you absorbed all of the energy?”

“Yep.”

“Mad. Barking mad.” She caught her breath. “And absolutely brilliant!”

And she stood on her tiptoes, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him with a fervor that put the lightning, the storm, and Cassandra to shame. He felt his toes curl inside his Converse as the hairs on his neck tingled. 

“…So,” he squeaked afterwards, wearing a struck expression. “Chips?”


End file.
